Joint Academic Lead for Inteprofessional Learning (HSC)

Extenuating Circumstances Chair (HCPC-regulated Professions)

Matthew is a Lecturer in Phonetics as well as a qualified Speech & Language Therapist.

Background

Following his undergraduate training in clinical linguistics, Matthew completed a PhD in Applied Linguistics focusing on how the 'y' sound in words such as 'cute' and 'pure' (the 'post-initial jod') is distributed in English and how it is processed by English speakers in deciding on the 'Englishness' of a novel word. Having taught alongside his PhD, he became responsible for the phonetics and phonology content on Reading's Speech & Language Therapy programmes and subsequently trained as a Speech & Language Therapist in order to better contextualise his teaching. He joined UEA in 2015 while completing his MSc dissertation on stammering and dyslexia.

Teaching and Research

Matthew is convenor of the Speech & Language Development & Disorder module but teaches across the programme on topics such as voice disorders, fluency disorders, and anatomy and physiology. He teaches communication skills across the School of Health Sciences including to Midwifery, Paramedic Science, Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy students.

His current interests are concerned with enhancing students' lower-order thinking skills, such as recalling, understanding, explaining. He received a student-led 'Most Innovative Teaching' award in 2016 for his use of musical parodies to teach concepts in acoustic phonetics. More recently, he has begun work to review and improve the interprofessional learning opportunities across the School of Health Sciences.

In addition to being a member of the Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists, Matthew is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a member of the British Association of Academic Phoneticians, and the Information Officer & Treasurer for the British Association of Clinical Linguistics.

Other Roles

Matthew is part-time for UEA, also working as a freelance pronunciation editor for the Oxford English Dictionary. He is the voice of thousands of recordings on the OED website, and has also edited pronunciations and advised on pronunciation material for other Oxford University Press dictionaries. In 2016, he represented Oxford Children's Dictionaries as one of the pronunciation advisers for a television series.